Editorial: A fantastic trend’

Friday

Aug 31, 2007 at 12:01 AMAug 31, 2007 at 1:56 PM

Editor's note: For Monday, Sept. 3, publication

Credit should be spread around but the bottom line in a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that drunken driving-related deaths in Massachusetts dropped for the second straight year.

By The Patriot Ledger

Editor's note: For Monday, Sept. 3, publication

Credit should be spread around but the bottom line in a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that drunken driving-related deaths in Massachusetts dropped for the second straight year.

“We think it’s very encouraging,” said David DeIuliis, a spokesman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). “It’s a fantastic trend.”

Indeed it is. According to the report, traffic fatalities in Massachusetts involving drivers who were legally intoxicated dropped 7 percent from 2005 to 2006. And that was on top of a decline of 20 percent the previous year. Doing the math, the highway safety administration said that factors out to 46 lives over the two year period.

Think about that: 46 families did not have to go through what the families of Melissa Leminen, Ronald Ford, Julie Rodick, Alexander Kotkowski, Peter Shaughnessy, Michael Brack, Melanie Powell - whose death triggered the biggest changes - and countless other families around the state went through before the law changes.

Perhaps no statute has had more of an impact than Melanie’s Law, named after the 13-year-old Marshfield girl killed by a repeat drunken driver.

The law requires ignition locks installed in the cars of repeat offenders that will prevent a vehicle from starting if the operator exceeds the legal limit. It also increased penalties for refusing to take a Breathalyzer test.

Since 2002, the number of Massachusetts drivers convicted of drunken driving dropped 18 percent, from 16,179 in 2002 to 13,239 in 2006. At the same time, the number of breath-test failures shot up 26 percent, while refusals to take the test dropped 23 percent.

The reduction was also helped by a new law getting repeat offenders off the road by allowing judges to consider drunken driving convictions older than 10 years when sentencing someone.

And Massachusetts finally passed a law in 2003 that made the blood alcohol content limit exceeding .08 proof, rather than presumption, of guilt.

The cumulative effect is now beginning to show, proving that supporters of the stronger laws, such as Melanie’s grandfather Ron Bersani, were right. They used their pain to make monumental changes and our roads - and our children - are safer for it.